Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bonney, Henry Kaye
BONNEY, HENRY KAYE, D.D. (1780–1862), divine, was son of Henry Kaye Bonney, rector of King’s Clifte and prebendary of Lincoln, and was born 22 May 1780 at Tansor, Northamptonshire of which parish his father was at that time rector. His father's family friend, Lord Westmorland, procured for him a foundation scholarship at the Charterhouse, where he obtained an exhibition, and went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Having been elected to one of the Tancred divinity studentships, he migrated to Christ’s College. He became B.A. in 1802, B.A. 1805, D.D. 1824. He was ordained deacon in 1803 and priest in 1804, with a charge at Thirlby, in Lincolnshire. After a few months he went to live with his parents at King’s Cliffe, and undertook the parishes of Ketton and Tixover with Duddington. He was collated by Bishop Tomline, 8 Jan. 1807, to the prebend of Nassington in Lincoln Cathedral. Bonney was presented by the Earl of Westmorland to the rectory of King's Cliffe, in succession to his father, who died of paralysis 20 March 1810; and published in 1815, with a dedication to the Earl of Westmorland, the 'Life of the Right Reverend Father in God, Jeremy Taylor, D.D., Chaplain in Ordinary to King Charles the First, and Lord Bishop of Down, Connor, and Dromore,' 8vo, London, 1815. In 1821 Bonney dedicated to Lady Cicely Georgiana Fane his 'Historic Notices in reference to Fotheringay. Illustrated by Engravings,' 8vo, Oundle, &c. In 1820 he was appointed examining chaplain to Dr. Pelham, the new bishop of Lincoln, and was collated by the same prelate, 10 Dec. 1821, to the archdeaconry of Bedford. An order in council, 19 April 1887, transferred it from the diocese of Lincoln to the diocese of Ely. Bonney published the 'Sermons and Charges by the Right Reverend Father in God, Thomas Fanshaw Middleton, D.D., late Lord Bishop of Calcutta. With Memoirs of his Life,' 8vo, London, 1824. On 15 May 1827 he married Charlotte, the fourth daughter of John Perry, who, after a childless union of nearly twenty-four years, died at King's Cliffe 26 Dec. 1850. In the year of his marriage, 1827, Bonney was appointed to the deanery of Stamford by his intimate friend Dr. Kaye, then recently translated from the see of Bristol to that of Lincoln, and was advanced by the same prelate, 22 Feb. 1845, from the archdeaconry of Bedford to that of Lincoln, of which, soon after his appointment, he made a parochial visitation, and committed to writing an accurate account of every church under his supervision. As an archdeacon Bonney was indefatigable. In the early part of 1858 he was seized with paralysis, and never entirely recovered. He died at the rectory-house. King's Cliife, 24 Dec. 1862, and was buried in his wife's grave in the churchyard of Cliffe, to the restoration of the church of which, then unfinished, he had shortly before contributed 500l.
He published his charges to the clergy of the archdeaconry of Bedford for the years 1823, 1843, and 1844, and the several charges delivered to the clergy and churchwardens of the archdeaconry of Lincoln at the visitations of 1860, 1854, and 1856. He also contributed a sermon, 'Sacred Music and Psalmody considered,' which had been first preached in Lincoln Cathedral, to the third volume of 'Practical Sermons by Dignitaries and other Clergymen of the United Church of England and Ireland,' 8vo, London, 1846.
[Crockford's Clerical Directory, 1860; Neve's Fasti; Gent. Mag. December 1862 et passim; Lincoln Gazette, 27 Dec. 1862; Morning Post, 29 Dec. 1862 ; Stamford Mercury, 26 Dec. 1862 and 2 Jan. 1863 ; Memoir appended to Kaye's Funeral Sermon.]